


Artist Wheein Paints a Picture

by SpaceShaolin



Series: The "reality" in BLACK AU Trilogy [2]
Category: Mamamoo
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:28:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22114873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceShaolin/pseuds/SpaceShaolin
Summary: Please, just let Wheein finish her damn painting already.
Series: The "reality" in BLACK AU Trilogy [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1586833
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	Artist Wheein Paints a Picture

It would take Wheein nearly three months and a week to finish the painting she’d hyped as the one that would “pierce the heavens, split the skies, and move hearts across the universe,” but she wouldn’t know this until she was well into her second month of conceptualizing the damn project. But as it was, she’d spent more than half her time conceptualizing, and by conceptualizing, what she really meant was that all she’d been doing so far was procrastinate.

She’d tried to do _something,_ of course, get her fingers moving a little, tried to get the gears in her head to grind against each other and come up with some bombastic idea that would make her painting… _pop._ But she’d only gotten as far as a few faint-hearted strokes on paper and half a dozen junked ideas before she gave up to play with her cat, Ggomo, instead.

It was a good thing her neighbors were also always so noisy, because then, she could at least keep lying to herself about things and give herself excuses to put it off and put it off and put it off, until –

“Ah, Ggomo!” Wheein wheezed, feeling her stupid little furball ram himself into her stomach as soon as the floor started to shake.

And there it was, without fail. With this mini-earthquake came the beginnings of the bi-weekly dance sessions being held in the floor directly under Wheein’s, the bass-heavy sounds thump-thump-thumping away on her space up on third. What this also meant was, Wheein would get no work done today, not when the subwoofers downstairs would come to life with such depth and noise, they’d jiggle her cans all over the place and send her brushstrokes going every which way.

“Well, I guess that’s it for today, huh, Ggomo?” Wheein said a little too cheerfully.

Ggomo, now having gotten over his initial terror of the subwoofers, fixed her with the most judging glare he could manage with his little eyes, as if he could see right through Wheein and her lies.

“It’s not my fault!” Wheein protested.

Ggomo stared at her again, yawned, and leapt off her chest to lay back down on the floor.

Wheein was immediately relieved to be free of her cat and his heightened bullshit detector. But a distraction was still a distraction, so she whipped out her phone for the eleventy-first time that morning to while away the time until the dance session downstairs came to an end.

* * *

Sometimes, Wheein made attempts to block out the sounds downstairs by making some musical sounds of her own. She did this by putting on her favorite album by her favorite artist and singing along to it, note for note, without getting any work done. She was probably never going to be on Hwasa's level, performance-wise, but she liked to think she was doing just fine on her own, as long as her only audience for these shows was Ggomo. 

In any case, she was almost always successful in drowning out the noise downstairs whenever she did this. It just so happened that, by the time she was done, she was usually too tired to do anything else for the rest of the day.

Ggomo meowed something at her and Wheein was almost positive he would be shaking his head right now at her, if he could, but she chose to ignore this to maintain her pride.

“Shut up, Ggomo, not now!”

Ggomo meowed something back at her in response.

* * *

Procrastination also came in the form of her two downstairs neighbors: up-and-coming boxer Solar on the ground floor and dance choreographer Moonbyul on the second. They didn’t have the most pleasant of first meetings, thanks largely in part to Moonbyul’s obnoxiousness and Solar’s cluelessness.

“Oh!” Moonbyul exclaimed on the day Wheein first moved in. “Are all the people in here so cute? Like, is that a requirement for anyone renting a room here? That’s really cool.”

Wheein had the sudden frightening urge to wipe off the incredibly pleased look Moonbyul had plastered all across her face. She would have done it too, had Solar not interfered just then.

“This is a women’s-only living space, you idiot,” she said, smacking Moonbyul’s head for good measure. Then, to Wheein, she said, “She’s always like this, please don’t mind her.”

Moonbyul gasped and put her hands to her chest. “If you wanted me to only do this to you, all you had to do was ask.”

Solar flicked a finger on Moonbyul’s arm, causing the choreographer to overreact and slump to the floor in exaggerated pain. Wheein politely shut the door in their faces then, properly terrified of her new neighbors and all the deranged things they were capable of.

But everything changed when Wheein discovered that both of her neighbors owned dogs. It was also the same day Solar and Moonbyul discovered that Wheein owned a cat, because the day everyone else found out these key bits about each other was the day Wheein discovered that her cat had disappeared.

“Have you seen my cat?” Wheein asked, down at the dance studio.

Moonbyul grinned at her. “Is this like one of those drama scenarios where you pretend you have a missing pet and get your crush to help you find it?” she said. “Well, I have dogs –” she continued, thinking this would interest Wheein at all, “– and they’re real, so if you ever find yourself doubting my feelings for you, know that they’re as real as Daebak, Haengwoon, and Geongang.”

As if on cue, all three dogs barked in response.

Wheein did actually care about the dogs, but at this moment, she cared about Ggomo more, so she tried to stare daggers at Moonbyul, hoping that sense would start coming out of her soon.

As if on cue, Moonbyul started to get self-conscious and now tried to avoid eye contact with Wheein’s icy gaze. “But if you’re talking about a real cat, I uh… I haven’t seen it.” She faltered and threw out another idea as a last resort. “But I could help you find him! If you want! Maybe he’s at the gym downstairs, let’s go!”

Ggomo wasn’t at Solar’s gym, either, but Solar did own a dog also, whom she formally introduced as Jjing Jjing. “And anyway, shouldn’t cats and dogs be natural enemies?” Solar pointed out. “My point is, maybe your cat wouldn’t hang out here, because there are dogs downstairs.”

Wheein could see the sense in this. “But I can’t get started on my work if I don’t know where Ggomo is,” she said. She knew it was a lie, because she would only return to her daily habit of procrastinating the minute she found Ggomo again, but she chose to keep this information to herself.

“You don’t think he might have gone upstairs?” Moonbyul said. “Like, upstairs- _upstairs._ ”

Solar’s mouth dropped open slightly and the small, alarmed look she flashed Moonbyul was more than enough to tell Wheein that there was something else about this apartment complex they weren’t telling her.

“What’s upstairs?” she dared to ask.

“A lion,” Moonbyul said immediately.

Solar sighed. “Or maybe it’s not a lion, maybe it’s something else entirely.”

“Well, what else could be making all that noise?”

Wheein snapped her fingers to get their attention. “Lion? What lion?” she said. “How can there be a lion upstairs- _upstairs?_ ”

Solar jerked a thumb at Wheein. “You see?” she gloated at Moonbyul. “I told you there’s no way a lion can live all the way up there. How would it even get there?”

“… Magic?” Moonbyul suggested.

“Idiot, there’s no such thing,” Solar shot back. “Maybe we’re secretly rooming with a female Tarzan and she brought the lion up there for company.”

“Lions don’t live in the jungle,” Wheein corrected automatically.

“A female Tarzan?” Moonbyul said, suddenly getting a faraway look in her eyes.

“Would a lion even know how to use the stairs?” Solar continued to speculate, now a little determined to get to the bottom of this mystery.

“Ggomo knows how to use stairs,” Wheein said. “That’s why I thought he went downstairs to see you guys.”

“Oh my god, maybe the lion’s real after all,” Solar said, her face now turning white.

“I told you so!”

“You,” Wheein said, pointing a finger at Moonbyul. “You boss guys around for a living. And you,” she said again, this time directing her finger towards Solar. “You’re a championship boxer!”

“I’ve only been in like, twenty matches,” Solar muttered, but looked pleased by her job description all the same.

Wheein chose to ignore both the comment and Moonbyul’s blatant look of admiration. “Why are you both so scared of some imaginary lion?”

Moonbyul snapped out of her usual ‘Solar is so amazing’ face to cast an indignant look at Wheein. “It’s not imaginary!” she insisted. “The lion’s real!”

“Yeah!” Solar agreed, now seeing the sense in this line of logic. “I remember I even heard it walking around and everything!”

“No you didn’t,” Moonbyul corrected. “Didn’t you hear it roar that one time?”

“That wasn’t it roaring, that was that new thing you guys thought was hip-hop one time.”

“Noise rap is still rap.”

“Not when there’s growling involved!”

“That’s called growling rap. I’ll have you know it’s very energetic and loads crazy.”

“You kids will call anything with beats hip-hop.”

“Hey, if I’m too loud, then you’re too old.”

“You’re talking to a championship boxer here, in case you forgot.”

“Oh, please. You’ve only been in, like, twenty matches.”

“Time!” Wheein interfered, catching them both just as Solar was about to slug Moonbyul with a right hook. “Now that you’re acting all top secret about this, I want to go up there and see the lion too.”

This drew gasps from both women.

“You’re so brave,” Moonbyul said. Solar nodded beside her.

“I’m not,” Wheein said. “I just want to go see the lion now. Even if I’m thinking you’re making this up to stop me from doing my work.”

“Sorry,” both of them muttered.

“But we’re not making it up!” Moonbyul said. “You’ll see, there’s a lion up there and I won’t save either of you until I get a sorry.”

"How chivalrous," Solar said, rolling her eyes.

* * *

So now, all three of them had made their way to the fourth floor – also known as the complex’s topmost floor and upstairs- _upstairs._ Both Solar and Moonbyul had taken their dogs with them as well, convinced they needed any confidence boost they could get for this grand trip to the unknown.

But the confidence boost was short-lived, as Jjing Jjing and Daebak leapt from their owners’ protective grasps towards the new playmate they saw in front of them.

“Jjing Jjing!” Solar said.

“Daebak!” Moonbyul said.

“Ggomo!” Wheein said.

And there Ggomo was indeed, sitting in front of a closed door on the top floor, meowing softly in greeting to the two other dogs.

“Oh good, he’s safe,” Wheein said, breathing out a sigh of relief. “Ggomo, get back here before the lion eats you!”

This prompted the others to start calling their pets back to them before the lion got to them too.

“Jjing Jjing!” Solar called and Jjing ran over to her.

“Ggomo!” Wheein tried again and this time, Ggomo made his way towards her.

“Daebak!” Moonbyul waved to get her dog’s attention, but Daebak stayed put and lifted a hind paw to scratch his ear. “Aw come on, Daebak, please?” Moonbyul said. “Don’t embarrass mommy like this.” But Daebak continued to ignore her, choosing to trot over to Wheein instead.

Wheein gave Daebak a pat and set him back on the floor so he could go elsewhere. She ignored Moonbyul’s whiny pleas to her dog and left these behind her as she inched forward, now filled with an urgent desire to fling the door open and see this lion for herself. She would have done this too, had Solar not sprinted after her and yanked her arm down to prevent her from doing so.

“What are you doing?” Solar hissed.

“I’m going to see the lion,” Wheein answered.

“Why would you do that?”

“… Because I want to see the lion?”

“You can’t just do that if you want to see the lion, you have to do it properly,” Solar explained. “You have to offer a tribute or sacrifice or something if you want to see the lion. That’s how it goes in the movies.”

“What movies?” Moonbyul said. “No movies show that!”

“Oh shush, don’t question the tastes of a movie connoisseur.”

“Movie connoisseur – you’re a boxer!”

“And you don’t know anything.” Solar turned back to Wheein. “Listen, when I say run, you knock on the door really loudly and run after me. Don’t look back, don’t even try to save Moonbyul.”

“What kind of plan is that?”

Wheein put a hand on Moonbyul’s shoulder and gave her a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry it has to be this way,” she said. She braced herself in front of the door and prepared to give it an almighty knock.

Moonbyul jabbed a finger at Solar’s chest before the boxer could give the signal. “You’re just being like this because you hate mumble rap.”

Solar gasped, like she’d been personally offended by the statement. “I don’t even know why you like that sort of thing! It’s not real rap!”

“Mumble rap _is_ rap, you’re just too old to see otherwise.”

“It’s not my fault I enjoy things I can actually understand.”

Rap seemed to be a hot topic between her neighbors today. Wheein sighed, weighing the pros and cons of kindly telling her neighbors to _shut the fuck up,_ or else the lion was going to hear them. She eventually decided against doing so, mainly because listening to them argue with each other was a form of entertainment all on its own.

“You’re just hating, ‘cos you can’t rap along to mumble rap like you do the others,” Moonbyul continued.

“But there’s no artistry to it! No technique! How am I supposed to enjoy something like that?” Solar hissed, like she was just suddenly remembering that they needed to be quiet.

“You don’t always need to understand something to enjoy it, okay, sometimes, all you need to do is chill with it and vibe _._ ”

“Oh, you mean I have to enjoy it the way I enjoy you?”

“What?”

“What?”

Finally, Wheein had had enough. “I can’t believe you two!” she said, throwing her hands in the air and turning to face them with a snarl. “All rap _is_ rap, it doesn’t matter what it sounds like!”

_“Ssh!”_

“Don’t tell me to _ssh,_ I’ve had it up to here with your attack on all things rap. Rap is universal, it’s pure, it’s _hip-hop._ And if you can’t embrace that, then you can’t embrace me.”

“What?”

“What?”

“What?”

An unsteady silence fell upon the trio.

Moonbyul raised a hand. “At least we can all agree Beyonce’s a really good rapper, right? I can’t be the only one who’s heard her rap.”

“Oh, I’ve heard some of it. She’s good,” Wheein agreed.

But Solar was not convinced. “I didn’t know she could rap,” she said.

Moonbyul groaned and dragged her hand over her face. “You’re so out of touch, I can’t believe it. And you even claim to _like_ the genre.”

“I do! It’s not my fault I’m super busy lately!”

“Oh, and you’re calling me lazy?”

“I just thought Beyonce raps the same way Rihanna does!”

“Which is to say, you didn’t think she rapped at all. Geez, I really can’t believe you.”

Wheein was about to tell them off once again for talking too loudly, but she cocked her head and looked at them both instead. “Wait,” she said, pondering. “Rihanna raps?”

“She doesn’t, see that was my point,” Solar said.

Moonbyul scoffed. “Oh, and you didn’t think Queen Bey raps too. I’m ashamed to know you. I’ll hit you up with a playlist when this is all over.”

“I didn’t think Rihanna rapped, honestly,” Wheein said.

“She doesn’t, but she’s still a goddess to me.”

All three women braced themselves just then, already ready to fire off their opinions and tell each other what they all thought of this, until they realized that the last voice that spoke didn’t belong to any of them. They looked at each other, eyes wide and just about ready to freak out. Moonbyul had already turned to run back the way she came. But Solar, despite being scared herself, had the presence of mind to grab on Moonbyul’s shirt collar before she took off.

Meanwhile, Wheein, who had already been preparing to knock on the door anyway, slowly turned towards it and whispered. “Hello?” she said. When no one answered her from within, she dared to act on her instincts and sing. _“Do you wanna build a snowman?”_

“Oh come on,” Solar said. “You can’t seriously think –”

The words died in her throat when the door opened an inch and someone else sang back at Wheein. _“Come on, let’s go and play,”_ the voice sang back to her.

Moonbyul had given up all hope of escaping Solar’s hold and had turned back to face the group again. Her mouth was hanging agape, her face still in a state of shock after hearing the voice that was interacting with them now. “I can’t believe it,” she said. “The lion is _singing_ to us.”

“I don’t think there’s really a lion,” Wheein said, exuding sense and logic, by virtue of being the one closest to the door and the truth. “It’s a person,” she continued. Then, to the other person inside the room, she said, “Hello, I’m Wheein.”

It took a while, but the door had finally opened and out came a short vision of beauty, with thighs being the obvious attention-grabbers, although a true intellectual would assert it was her eyes that were the real deal here. But the woman did look a little familiar, it was just hard to remember exactly where she –

“Moonbyul, shut up.”

Moonbyul halted her monologue and shut up. “Sorry,” she said, sheepish. “Doesn’t she look familiar to you?”

Solar nodded, her eyes still on the fourth room occupant, who was now most clearly not a lion. “It explains why Wheein’s stuck like that.”

‘Stuck like that,’ meaning Wheein was rendered speechless and starstruck at the woman that now stood before them. This was because the woman was someone Wheein knew and listened to daily, back when she would try and will all the downstairs noise from interfering with her work.

“Hwasa!” Wheein said, then started clapping her hands out of embarrassment. “It’s Hwasa! Oh my god, you were a lion this whole time, I can’t believe it!”

The woman gave a little twirl and flipped her hair. She struck a pose by the doorway. “That’s me,” she said, a proud smirk on her face. “I’m Hwasa.”

“What?” Moonbyul yelled from the back. “What’d she say?”

“She says her name is Hwasa!” Wheein called back.

“Oh. Speak louder, then!”

“I thought you said you recognized her?” Solar said.

“I only said she looked familiar.” Moonbyul shrugged. “Why would that make you think I knew her name?”

* * *

“… And that’s what we were doing on your floor,” Wheein said, adding a brushstroke of red to her canvas.

“What a waste of time,” Moonbyul grumbled. “And we didn’t even get to see any lion. Lame.”

“But I do have a lion,” Hwasa said. “I teach him tricks sometimes. I would have unleashed him all on your pets upstairs, but I thought your dogs were cute.”

Wheein stopped painting for a minute to look downcast. “Oh, so you’re not a cat person,” she said.

“Lion’s a cat,” Hwasa said. “And I could be a dog person too. Like, look at you, you’re so cute. Like a dog.”

An unsteady silence fell upon them all, forcing Hwasa to make a polite cough to dispel some of it.

“She’s even greasier than you are, I can’t believe it,” Solar muttered to Moonbyul.

Moonbyul was about to beam proudly at this, but realized she still had more questions to ask of this moment. “This is quite the unexpected development,” she said. “I mean, what were the chances the lion we were stalking this whole time was actually somebody Wheein knew? Doesn’t that seem odd to you?”

“Your face is odd,” Hwasa observed.

Wheein put up a hand. “I didn’t say I knew her,” she said. “Just that I sing to her sometimes when you two are being too noisy.”

“That’s not creepy at all,” Moonbyul said. Beside her, Solar looked ready to launch into a whole spiel about how quietly she’d been spending her days.

Hwasa turned to Wheein with an even dreamier look in her eyes, if it was even possible. “Oh, so that was your voice I was hearing downstairs,” she said, now openly admiring Wheein. “I want you to know I fell for you the moment I heard you sing. Like when you sang at me through my doorway too. I thought I would melt.”

“Oh, Wheein, you’re going to get a girlfriend!” Moonbyul sang. “And a musical actress to boot! Isn’t that something?”

“Oh no, I just want to be her friend,” Hwasa corrected.

Moonbyul looked disappointed.

“And then, we can get married.”

Solar looked alarmed. “At least do it safely first!”

Wheein cocked her head to give her painting-in-progress a closer look. Her cool resting face told everyone in the room just how concerned she was that they were all discussing her marriage prospects like this. “Well, at least I started painting again,” she said. “I guess I have you guys to thank for that.”

Hwasa nodded and made a sound to keep up the pretense that she was listening, even if she was really just looking down at Wheein’s painting-in-progress to watch the masterpiece unfold.

“You’re not listening,” Wheein accused.

“I’m multi-tasking,” Hwasa asserted.

“And Moonbyul’s poking my face again,” Solar whined. “Ugh, stop!”

“Her cheeks are so round and soft,” Moonbyul said with a dreamy sort of tone. “I feel like biting them sometimes.” It was the kind of airy, far-off voice that made everyone else afraid of offering her a direct response, because no one was prepared to hear what Moonbyul would say next, in response to their response.

Wheein cleared her throat. “Well, the good news is, I’ve stopped procrastinating. So now, Ggomo can stop judging me and I can lead a peaceful life until I hand this in.”

“Aw, procrastinating’s not so bad,” Moonbyul said. “I do it a lot too. Like when I’m stuck, I look at magazines or stare into space until I come up with something.”

“Or you bother Solar downstairs,” Solar added.

“Or I bother Solar downstairs,” Moonbyul agreed.

“I think,” Hwasa said. “I think, as artists, we’re all entitled to a little procrastination sometimes.”

“Right! It’s an artist thing.”

“Oh!” Solar looked up brightly. “I procrastinate sometimes too. Sometimes, I put off doing the laundry until the last possible minute.”

Moonbyul made a face. “That’s not procrastinating. That’s just being gross.”

Solar crossed her arms and huffed. “Well, I don’t know if you know,” she said. “But I’ll have you all know they do call boxing a _sweet science._ ”

She puffed her chest, thinking she’d proven her point clearly, but all her statement did was rile Moonbyul up even further.

“There, see, that’s why you’re not an artist,” she crowed. “If that’s what you call your sport, then doesn’t technically make you a scientist?”

This earned her blank looks all around the room.

“Look, I said ‘technically,’ so I’m still kind of right.”

Still, more silence.

“Okay, fine, if it makes you feel any better, I’d say you’re a pretty scientist.”

Hwasa nodded her head, but it was difficult to tell if she was being sincere or not. “You do have to give it her,” she said, making her intentions clear. “It takes a real artist to come up with greasy stuff like that.”

“Damn right it does.”

“That wasn’t a compliment.”

“There, all done!” Wheein announced and put down her paintbrush. She fanned the small easel with her hands and grinned at Moonbyul. “Ta-da!” she said. “It’s for you!”

Here, Wheein presented her completed mini-painting to Moonbyul, a striking splash of fiery, passionate colors that were all struck against the small canvas. In the middle of the angry red and orange hues, a plea tinged in yellow declared, _PLEASE STOP._

“Wow, it’s so beautiful!” Moonbyul gushed, completely misinterpreting the point of the piece. “I’ll treasure this with my entire being, Wheein.”

Solar looked at the mini-painting again to see if she’d read it right. “Um,” she started to say. But she caught the starry-eyed look Moonbyul was so earnestly sporting right now, and so, caught herself in time before giving it to her straight. There was no sense in disrupting the choreographer’s mood now, even if it came at the expense of Wheein’s sanity and delayed deadlines. “It feels very… alive.”

“It’s… it’s got a good message,” Hwasa tried. “Very moving. I’m very moved.”

"Very much open to interpretation too," Solar agreed. "Like, stop what, exactly? Who knows?"

“It’s the work of a real artist,” Moonbyul continued to say. “A real look at our Wheein’s innermost thoughts. And to think she dedicated it to me! Wow, it’s a real honor, it really is.”

Solar took one more look at Wheein, whose head was now firmly planted in her hands. A small, sad sort of noise was making its way past Wheein’s fingertips, and the only reason Moonbyul hadn’t heard this was because she wouldn’t stop talking.

“She’ll figure it out soon, don’t worry,” she consoled, placing a sympathetic hand on Wheein’s head. “Maybe when she’s old and gray, but she’ll get it, eventually.”

Wheein made a higher-pitched noise in response, no longer minding if she’d gurgled her “whatever you say” in the process.

“If it helps,” Hwasa said, joining the consoling party. “I can stay here and hang with you every day until you finish your actual painting. I am an inspiration, after all.”

But the suggestion caused Wheein to groan even louder, as she now started to think of all the work she wouldn’t be able to finish with Hwasa watching her every move. Ggomo meowed something at her then, but even this was hardly sympathetic and completely unhelpful.

“I hate all of you,” she said, but she lifted her head up from her hands to give them all a warm smile anyway.

And then, she threw them all out of her room.

* * *

_“It’s always warm, that attention is tingly”_

_\- Mamamoo ("HIP")_


End file.
